Specialized stores: utilizing data to drive product sales
Your sports stores are continuously inundated with vast amounts of information. This data underpins every strategy and initiative implemented by brands—whether it be in marketing, logistics, supplier procurement, or merchandising. It empowers informed decision-making and significantly enhances the customer experience.
What challenges do retail brands encounter in collecting and processing data? This article will explain everything you need to know.
Understanding store data
In a local retail environment, data refers to all information linked to transactions, products, and observed shopping behaviors at the sales point. When integrated into a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, this data serves as the foundation for managing customer relationships and includes:
- Customer footfall
- Time spent in the store
- Products purchased
- Average basket value
- Buyer profiles
Gathering data
Sports specialty stores can gather data using a range of tools and technologies, including:
- Surveillance cameras
- Motion sensors
- POS systems or POS software
- Social media platforms
- Online stores
- Loyalty programs
Combining physical and online sources allows retailers to gain a more precise understanding of consumer preferences and shopping behaviors. This enables them to optimize merchandising tactics, fine-tune marketing campaigns, and enhance the effectiveness of their daily operations.
Leveraging data to enhance customer experience
Global retail is projected to hit $28 trillion by 2028, with 75% of sales occurring in physical stores. Therefore, customer experience at the point of sale continues to be a significant differentiator for businesses.
The growing prevalence of digital and e-commerce habits has made data indispensable for offering seamless and personalized customer experiences. This strategy facilitates deeper customer insights, effective profile segmentation, personalized interactions, and better customer reception in stores.
Furthermore, data enhances visibility into customer journeys and supports targeted marketing efforts aimed at building customer loyalty.
According to McKinsey (2025), after experiencing a 7% annual growth from 2021 to 2024, the sporting goods industry is projected to grow by 6% annually until 2029. Concurrently, over 1.8 billion people worldwide do not engage in sufficient physical activity, representing a key strategic target for specialized brands. These brands can encourage physical well-being through marketing initiatives, inclusive products, and educational campaigns.
Challenges faced by sports specialty stores
Automation and standardization
The initial challenge for sports stores is effectively managing the volume of data moving between different departments and ensuring that this data is automatically captured. Essential to this process are tools that can centralize product and customer information into customized dashboards.
Daily operations require analysts to work with high-quality data. Implementing a system of standardization and consistency ensures reliable and coherent data usage, eliminating errors and price discrepancies. The aim is to have consistent, accessible, and actionable information across all levels of your independent stores.
Multichannel collection
Independent stores face another challenge in managing the vast range of data sources generated by omnichannel environments: eCommerce sites, mobile apps, physical stores, and social media interactions. Each channel has distinct characteristics and consumer groups. Utilizing real-time data is vital to prevent silos and ensure critical elements in your marketing and sales strategies are not overlooked.
The concept of unified retail data is now a cornerstone for retailers. The principle is straightforward: consolidate data from various sales and communication channels into one reliable source to achieve a cohesive view.
Openbravo Commerce Cloud offers a solution tailored for unified commerce. It centralizes product, customer, and transaction data in a single platform, providing retailers with:
- Consolidated dashboards
- Real-time reporting tools
- Personalized customer experience
- Inventory optimization
- International compliance
Request a demo of our solution today!
Analysis and reporting
Gathering customer and product data is only the beginning; the real challenge lies in reading, interpreting, and drawing useful insights from it. Retailers must transform data into actionable and understandable performance indicators for all employees.
Manual data analysis can be both time-consuming and inefficient. Consider a running store tracking its dormant stock using Excel, which identifies a few dozen unmoving items. A specialized software could automate this analysis, integrate various parameters (such as sizes, colors, stores, labels), and identify hundreds of products to discount, redistribute, or reposition.
The result is thousands of additional sales, fewer unnecessary promotions, reduced ecological impact, and optimized customer relationships through more informed decisions. According to Forbes, stores are now advancing towards predictive commerce, where every transaction provides insights that enhance decision-making.
Strategic anticipation
Predictive analysis allows data to forecast purchases and sales, adjust inventory levels, and plan future marketing campaigns. Anticipating customer needs leads to increasingly personalized experiences and bolsters the competitiveness of your sports stores. Data can transform emerging trends into sustainable growth drivers.
Security and GDPR compliance
Digital transformation for specialty brands, such as sports or organic networks like La Vie Claire, cannot be achieved without a strong framework for store data security. Best practices emphasize the need for a clear internal charter, regular data backups, robust antivirus software, and strict user access management.
Orisha Commerce prioritizes these challenges in its products. By incorporating elements from the acquisition of Wolfpack DCS in 2024, the company has bolstered its portfolio of unified cloud technologies, adept at managing sensitive data flows and meeting international retail compliance requirements.
Key takeaway: Effective data management in specialty stores is crucial. Rely on a system that can centralize data, its sources, and the results of their analysis.
Retail companies can leverage software that improves customer insights, enriches the omnichannel experience, and enhances their commercial performance.
